Iran and Appeasement at UN General Debate also No Call for Justice via Nuremberg Prosecution of US

This article is in regard to the address of President Hassan Rouhani of Iran before the United Nations General Assembly during its 2015 General Debate (9/28/2015), the general atmosphere of appeasement during the debate, and an unwillingness, even by delegates of nations bombed and invaded by US or NATO, to uphold the UN Charter that contains the Nuremberg Principles of international law.

In 1953, US President Eisenhower ordered the CIA to cooperate with British M-16 to covertly bring about the overthrow of Iran’s democratic government after it had nationalized its oil industry. Kemit Roosevelt led the CIA team that successfully brought about the public violence and chaos that permitted the overthrow of Iran’s democratic government. [1][2]

During the 1979 Iranian revolution, the US caused the death of thousands of Iranians by supporting the Shah, a US ally, the CIA having for years trained the murderous Savak secret police of the Shah.[3]

President Reagan supported, aided and abetted the criminal eight-year invasion war ordered by Saddam Hussain of Iraq.[4][5]

US Presidents Bush and Obama have continually threatened Iran with nuclear attack over many years.

THE APPEASEMENT (as perceived by one archival research people’s historian)

President Hassan Rouhani of Iran, addressing the UN General Assembly, did not call for the prosecution of the US under Article Six of the Nuremberg Principles for the above described crimes against peace and crimes against humanity described above, nor did he even mention these US crimes against his country. [6]

President Rouhani did not call for justice for the survivors of US crimes against humanity and crimes against peace in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, which he did however report though not calling them crimes.

“The roots of today’s wars, destruction and terror could be found in the occupation, invasion and military intervention of yesterday,”. “If we did not have the US military invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the its unwarranted support for the inhumane actions of the Zionist regime against Palestine, terrorists today would not have an excuse for the justification of their crimes.”

In the absence of calling for the prosecution of a crime reported, complaining about the death and destruction is a form of appeasement and being derelict in one’s duty toward victims.

President Rouhani did not refer to the US “wars, destruction and terror” as prosecutable crimes, not even as crimes,[7] but did only use the word ‘crime’ in agreement with Western media: “Terrorists today would not have an excuse for the justification of their crimes.” This is an appalling support for the US and other colonial powers that insist that only those identified as terrorists, including those fighting against US invasions of their countries, are guilty of crimes.

Actually, a person of high office and influence giving the impression that a crime is something other than crime, especially over a long period of time, could be prosecuted as an accessory after the fact for aiding a felon or felons evade prosecution.[7]

Finally, in past UN debates, delegates have utilized the ‘right to reply’ rule upon hearing a distortion or untrue statements about his or her country actions. Its bad enough when the world has to hear the slandering of US designated enemies from only a spokesperson of the ruthless speculative investment banking community that invests in and plans profitable illegal use of military forces, but it is intolerable when President Obama is allowed to get away with the most preposterous descriptions of US invasions being legal and making US victims out to be lawbreakers without being challenged.

With Iranian highest officials for years saying Iran has no intention, nor sees any usefulness, in making a nuclear bomb, why shall the delegate of Iran be silent in the face of Iranians being called liars by those who oversee the bombing and invasions of many nations.

President Obama, who regularly threatens to bomb Iran and forces allies to sanction Iran, commands a nuclear arsenal enough to destroy the entire planet many times over, makes no threat to bomb Israel, India, Pakistan or even North Korea for their actually having disregarded nuclear proliferation and made their nuclear bombs.

Both the sanctions and threats to bomb are identified a crimes against peace in the UN Charter and need to be more than just complained against. Crime pays when no one calls for their prosecution in the court of public opinion, the most basic court of all.

Perhaps even more dangerous is not confronting the incredibly provocative lie that former President Ahmadinejad threatened to wipe out Israel when he quoted Khomeini as having pointed out that the map of the world now contains no Soviet Union.

For your author, apart from all the above mentioned, President Rouhani’s tone of voice sounded conciliatory, which was for this archival research people’s historian inappropriate to the enormous loss of life in the US invasions cited that are still ongoing.

This article is intended to be part of a series of articles on the 2015 UN General Debate.

2. Counter Coup: The Struggle for the Control of Iran, by Kermit Roosevelt, hardcover, 1979

3. “CIA documents discuss how western intelligence recruited pro-Shah military officers, police, royalists, Islamic mullahs, and others, including paid informants and thugs, to destabilize and ultimately overthrow Mossadegh’s young regime. Following clashes between the police, military and pro-monarchy elements on one side and Mossadegh supporters on the other — which killed hundreds of people — Mossadegh was placed under arrest. In his place, retired General Fazlollah Zahedi, blessed with the endorsement of the Shah, named himself the new prime minister. (Mossadegh spent the remainder of his life under house arrest and died in 1967 at the age of 85.)” fromCIA Admits To Iran 1953 Coup, By Palash Ghosh, 8/19/2013

6. Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nürnberg Tribunal and in the Judgment of the Tribunal, subsequently part of the Charter of the United Nations, and by the way by Article II of the US Constitution, an integral part of that constitution (”In the United States…, our constitution declares a treaty to be the law of the land. It is, consequently, to be regarded in courts of justice as equivalent to an act of the legislature, whenever it operates of itself, without the aid of any legislative provision. – Chief Justice Marshall in 1829:)

Principle I
Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefor and liable to punishment.

Principle II
The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law.

Principle III
The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible Government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.

Principle IV
The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.

Principle V
Any person charged with a crime under international law has the right to a fair trial on the facts and law.

Principle VI
The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:
a
Crimes against peace:
(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;
(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts
mentioned under (i).
b
War crimes:
Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill treatment or deportation to slave labour or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill – treatment of prisoners of war, of persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.
c
Crimes against humanity:
Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhuman acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime.
Principle VII
Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle VI is a crime under international law.
Yearbook of the International Law Commission, 1950
, vol. II, para 97
—————————————————–
7. “Whoever, knowing that an offense against the United States has been committed, receives, relieves, comforts or assists the offender in order to hinder or prevent his apprehension, trial or punishment, is an accessory after the fact. Except as otherwise expressly provided by any Act of Congress, an accessory after the fact shall be imprisoned not more than one-half the maximum term of imprisonment or (notwithstanding section 3571) fined not more than one-half the maximum fine prescribed for the punishment of the principal, or both; or if the principal is punishable by life imprisonment or death, the accessory shall be imprisoned not more than 15 years.”

18 U.S. Code § 3 – Accessory after the fact.

Jay Janson is an archival research people’s historian activist, musician and writer; has lived and worked on all continents in 67 countries; articles on media published in China, Italy, UK, India, Sweden and the US; now resides in NYC; First effort was a series of articles on deadly cultural pollution endangering seven areas of life emanating from Western corporate owned commercial media published in Hong Kong’s Window Magazine 1993; Howard Zinn lent his name to various projects of his; Global Research; Information Clearing House; Counter Currents, Kerala, India; Minority Perspective, UK; Einartysken, Sweden: Saker Vineyard, Germany; Dissident Voice; Ta Kung Pao; Uruknet; Voice of Detroit; Mathaba; Ethiopian Review; Palestine Chronicle; India Times; MalaysiaSun; China Daily; South China Morning Post; Come Home America; CubaNews; TurkishNews; HistoryNews Network; Vermont Citizen News have published his articles; 300 of which are available at: http://www.opednews.com/author/author1723.html ; Weekly column, South China Morning Post, 1986-87; reviews for Ta Kung Bao; article China Daily, 1989. Is coordinator of the Howard Zinn co-founded King Condemned US Wars International Awareness Campaign: and website historian of the Ramsey Clark co-founded Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now Campaign featuring a country by country history of US crimes and laws pertaining.